Question : Advantages / Disadvantages of routing Internet Traffic through Windows 2003 server

What are your thoughts regarding routing internet traffic through the domain controller?

Here's the quick scenerio: I have a 20 workstation LAN. I'm retiring a Windows 2000 and NT server and replacing them with 2 new Windows 2003 servers (a primary and secondary DC, File / Print and MS SQL Server). Between the LAN and the Internet is Cisco 1800 series.

I know its most common to route traffic through the DC but I'm scratching my head wondering if it wouldn't be better more practical to let the Cisco manage NAT, DNS and DHCP.

Can someone convince me otherwise?

Answer : Advantages / Disadvantages of routing Internet Traffic through Windows 2003 server

I would say it's actually quite uncommon to use your DC as a router.  Your Cisco 1800 will most likely perform far more reliably as a router, since that is what it is designed to do.  The only network infrastructure role I commonly see Windows servers perform is as a VPN server or a Proxy server.  If you need a caching proxy, or filtering of some sort, set up ISA server, but still use the 1800 for the final gateway.

Let Windows 2003 server do DHCP and DNS, as managing them on the 1800 will be a pain.  Let the 1800 do NAT.  DNS and DHCP are very low overhead.